Step 2
Roots Report
The full village report. For families who know their ancestor's town or village and want its history, temples and records.
$390
Delivery: About 1 month from payment
What you get
- Usually 25–40 pages, with maps and a timeline
- Three likely family temples, with their Buddhist sect and distance from the village
- Old books and documents that name your surname, and where to see them
- Edo-period (1603–1868) and earlier records of the family name
- For Okinawan families, and for families who went to Brazil or Peru: if you tell us your emigrant ancestor's name, we look it up in Japan's passport and emigrant lists, at no extra charge
- For families from other prefectures: Japan's passport registers of 1881–1941 are kept on microfilm in Tokyo, by prefecture and month, with no name index. If you know your emigrant ancestor's name, prefecture and rough year of leaving, we can search them as a separate service, quoted separately. Before you pay, we tell you by email whether a search is possible.
- Your personal guide to requesting your koseki: which city office, how to pay from your country
- Full list of every source checked
- Format: A4 PDF of usually 25–40 pages; prints on US Letter with "fit to page"
- The length depends on how many records survive for your name in the village; we confirm it in our order confirmation email.
It tells the story of your surname, its village and the families of that name in the records. Your koseki goes back to the 1886 registers, which often name ancestors born in the early 1800s. Links to the older families of the name rest mostly on where the name is found, so our charts draw them as a dotted line.
What you need to provide
- Your ancestor's surname. Roman letters are fine. If you happen to know it in kanji, add it; it narrows the search, but it is not needed.
- The town or village. If you know only the prefecture, we can still begin.
- That is all. No koseki or other documents are needed; the Report includes a guide to requesting the koseki.
Price and payment
- We confirm the order by email and send a payment link.
- Prices are in US dollars and include all our fees for the PDF.
- Delivery times are estimates, not guarantees. Every record gets the care it needs, so if we expect a delay, we will let you know by email.
How it fits with our other services
This is Step 2, the full village report. Families without a koseki go Step 1 (Roots Snapshot) → Step 2 → Step 3 (Family Chronicle); you can start at any step. Compare all services at a glance.
Before thisRoots Snapshot ($29) — Not sure yet? The $29 Roots Snapshot is a short first look at the same village.
After thisFamily Chronicle ($2,900) — The Report is required before a Family Chronicle or a Chronicle + Family Tree. It shows whether enough records survive for a book; if not, we tell you so, and you need not buy anything more.
See a sample
Every service has a full public sample (Chronicle + Family Tree shares the Family Chronicle and Koseki Family Tree samples). The family in the sample is fictional; the places, records and research are real.
Read the sample on the webDownload the sample as delivered (PDF, 1.8 MB)
Roots Report — $390. Tell us about your family, and we reply by email within a week.
Get my Roots Report